Chipmunk Puppet to Craft & Play!
Create these adorable Chipmunk Puppets for some imaginary play this fall! When you’re done, add to your animal puppet collection with this Paper Bag Bunny Template. This post contains affiliate links.
On a nice summer’s day, what’s better than sitting outside looking for wildlife to observe? I like to imagine that the chipmunks at this time of year are filling their cheeks with nature’s goodies to store away for the coming winter.
It’s a good trait for the rest of us to learn from, too – whether it’s saving up money for a rainy day, stocking the freezer for that busy season at work, or even mindfully enjoying a day off to give you an energy boost that will last when your break is over.
Why not relate these messages to your kids or students with a puppet show? Or just skip the morals and add chipmunks to your puppet collection because they’re just plain cute.
If you’ve been around this blog for some time, you know how much we love puppets for enriching kids’ pretend play and social skills as they act out interactions between different puppet characters, creating stories and conversations or re-enacting ones they’ve heard before.
Making the puppets themselves extends the fun times and gives kids another layer of benefit from the experience. They get to practice their fine motor skills such as tracing, cutting, and gluing, and then they get to feel the pride and mastery of being able to use something they created!
Paper bag puppets are great for this because anyone can make them and the materials are so easy to come by. The flap of the bottom part of the bag animates your puppet’s head.
Younger crafters may need a little help with tracing and cutting, while older or more skilled children can do it themselves. If you don’t have the right colors of paper, print the template on white cardstock and let the child color it with crayons or markers.
Grab your free template at the end of this post and let’s get started!
What you’ll need
How to make a chipmunk puppet
1. Pring the template and cut out all the pieces – head, lower part of face, eyes, cheeks, nose, teeth, feet, tail, and belly. Trace them onto colored paper or cardstock and cut them out as follows:
Belly and lower face – white or cream
Cheeks – pink
Teeth and eyes – white
Nose – black
Everything else – brown
Use a marker to draw pupils on the eyes.
2. Glue the lower face part to the bottom of the head cutout, with the rounded edge on bottom.
3. Glue the eyes to the head, slightly overlapping the cream-colored lower face.
4. Glue the nose to the center of the lower face part, overlapping the edge where it forms a V shape.
Glue the teeth below the nose.
5. Use a marker to draw a mouth and outline the teeth
Glue the pink circles onto the cheeks. Trim off any extra paper that sticks out past the face.
6. Trace or measure your paper bag onto brown paper and cut it out. This will be your chipmunk’s body.
Glue the feet cutouts to the bottom of the body.
7. Glue the tail to one side of the body.
Glue the cream/white colored belly cutout at the bottom of the body.
8. Use a marker to draw a swirl on the round part of the tail.
Use a sharpie to draw a twirl pattern on the round part of the tail.
9. Position your paper bag so the bottom of the bag is at the top of your work area – this will be the head of the puppet. The opening of the bag should be at the bottom.
Glue the chipmunk body to the flat side of the paper bag. Flatten the bottom of the paper bag toward you.
10. Glue the chipmunk’s head to the flattened bottom of the paper bag.
To play, gently stick your hand into the opening on bottom of the paper bag. Reach some fingers into the top. Move your hand and fingers to make the puppet’s body and head come to life!
Download you Chimpmunk Puppet template
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